


A Sudden Seeing

by susiecarter



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Magical Accidents, Season/Series 03, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23946559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: "The memory demon," he said shortly. "We were trying to get Clary's memories back, to help her save her mother. But I—" He stopped, and swallowed. "I broke the circle. The demon almost took Jace. We had to kill it, and it took Clary's memories with it."Because I'm an idiot. Because I panicked. Because no one was ever supposed to know that I—that I—No one spoke.And Alec felt his stomach drop, because that had to mean that somehow, that had been the wrong answer.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 28
Kudos: 214
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	A Sudden Seeing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scatteredmoonlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteredmoonlight/gifts).



> Your request was basically everything I've ever wanted to write about these guys at the same time, scatteredmoonlight—I just hope you enjoy reading this half as much as I enjoyed writing it for you!
> 
> This is set in the space between most of the S3 finale and that "a year later" timeskip (per Magnus's comment in 3.05, by that point in the show he and Alec haven't been together for more than a few months). The "internalized homophobia" tag is because Alec's reverted to a headspace where he still has some of his early S1 hangups; it is what I would term mild and not more than is canon-compliant.

... For memory, which is only decadent  
in hands like a miser’s  
loving the thing for its thingness,  
or in the eyes of collectors who assess  
the size, the incredible size, of their collection,  
can, in the living head, create and make  
new the sometimes appallingly ancient present  
and sting the sleeping thing  
to a sudden seeing ...

—"[Remembering](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53330/remembering-56d232864695d)" by PK Page

Alec came around slowly, a bit at a time.

It felt like it took longer than usual. He couldn't—he couldn't _think_ , everything dim and slow and muddled, like his head had been cracked open, had had everything dumped out of it and shuffled around and then crammed back in.

He became aware, gradually, that he was lying down. That his eyes were closed. It didn't seem important, or like something he needed to do anything about; these things were just facts.

He felt all right, he realized, after a little while longer. He wasn't in pain. That was how he figured out that he'd half expected to be, that he'd been bracing himself to discover that he was. But aside from that strange cracked-open feeling in his head, he wasn't hurt.

He frowned a little, brow furrowing, eyes still closed. If he wasn't hurt, then there was—there was no reason for him to be here, right? There was no reason why he should be lying here doing nothing. He should get up. He had responsibilities, duties.

He opened his eyes.

He was in the Institute. In the Institute, on a bed in the medical wing—unfamiliar territory, especially from this angle. Alec had always just slapped on a healing rune when he needed one, and kept going. He'd hardly ever been hurt so badly that he couldn't handle it on his own.

And he didn't feel hurt at all, right now. But _something_ had definitely happened to him.

He tried to push himself up on one elbow, grimacing; it still didn't hurt, but his head felt so heavy, loose on his neck, like it might roll off if he wasn't careful.

And then, in a rush of motion and warmth and wide dark eyes, Izzy was there.

"Alec!"

"I'm fine," Alec said automatically.

Izzy's face flickered through a quick handful of expressions: skeptical, and then knowing, and then helplessly relieved. "We didn't know what had happened," she said. "You were—there was some kind of magical trap set into the floor. We couldn't tell it was there until you walked into it. You wouldn't wake up. Magnus is on his way—"

Alec blinked. "Magnus—Bane." Not that it didn't make sense to ask the most powerful warlock in New York for help, when there was magic involved; but surely if there had been a trap on the floor, Bane was the one who'd set it. They'd been in his little warlock rescue sanctuary, trying to get Clary's memories back. If something had gone wrong, which it evidently had, Izzy and Jace should've grabbed him right then and there, not left him to follow them to the Institute on his own recognizance.

Izzy stopped short, and looked at him searchingly, and then started to frown. "Alec," she said slowly, and then, over her shoulder, Magnus Bane did indeed appear in the doorway.

He just stood there for a moment, framed in all his wild dramatic warlock excess. There were pictures in the Institute's files, Alec would've recognized him on sight even if they'd never met in person; but they had, which meant there was no excuse for the impact of his presence to feel like a kick to the chest. It was—it was just that his full attention was a lot, Alec decided, looking away. His full attention was a lot, and he knew too much, or at least he thought he did. He'd seen what the memory demon had tried to take from Alec, just like everybody else in the room, and he thought he understood what it meant.

He was wrong, obviously. That had been a trick. But it still made Alec's throat tight, filled him up with a hot skittish feeling, to think that Bane knew—that Bane _thought_ he knew—what Alec wanted. What Alec was.

"Magnus," Izzy was saying, and she sounded warm, relieved; way, way gladder to see Bane than she should have been, Alec thought. "He just woke up. He says he's—"

"—fine," Bane said for her, with a small lopsided smile. And then his eyes came back to Alec, and the look in them would have been intent, intense, almost too much, even _without_ half a pound of eyeliner involved. "You gave us all quite a scare, Alexander," he added in a murmur, and his tone was strange, soft, in a way that made Alec's ears burn. What did he think he was doing? People didn't just— _talk_ to people like that. It was ridiculous; it was obscene. "You really need to learn to take better care of yourself."

"I'll take that under advisement," Alec said, very flat.

But if his brusqueness bothered Bane, Bane didn't show it. He tilted his head a little, and looked at Alec thoughtfully for a moment. And then he crossed the room, reached out and took Alec's chin between two fingertips and a thumb. "If you like," he said. "But I suppose if you insist on being stubborn about it, I'll just have to make sure I'm always here do it for you."

And then he—then they were—

Alec froze beneath the touch of Bane's mouth against his. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe; his heart pounded, his ears roared.

And then all at once he _could_ move, and did: he shoved a forearm between them and forced Bane a half-step away, twisted his face out from under Bane's and sucked in a sharp breath, and his free hand found the hilt of his sword, the blade blazing into being in a rush of clean white light.

He wasn't going to use it. He wouldn't break the Accords, not over this. But he wanted Bane to remember who he was—a Shadowhunter, and not to be trifled with; not someone to make a fool of on a whim.

"What are you _doing_?" he spat, and shoved Bane away from him. "What makes you think you can—"

" _Alec_ ," Izzy said.

She hadn't looked upset before, but she did now. Which was only right, considering what Bane had just done. Except she didn't look upset with Bane.

She was staring at Alec with her brows drawn down, her mouth tight—she'd moved toward Bane, a hand outstretched reflexively to steady him.

"What?" Alec demanded. "Did you see what he just—"

"He doesn't remember," Bane said, very evenly.

He wasn't glaring like Izzy. He looked almost calm, now, cool and glittering where he'd been so close and so weirdly ardent a moment ago.

"Remember what?" Alec snapped.

Izzy darted a glance at Bane, and then looked at Alec with new eyes: assessing, uncertain. "Alec, what's the last thing that happened before you woke up here?"

Alec gritted his teeth. "Izzy." What was she doing, asking him that? Making him say it, when she had to know that was the last thing he wanted to do?

"Tell me," she insisted.

He let his eyes fall shut. "The memory demon," he said shortly. "We were trying to get Clary's memories back, to help her save her mother. But I—" He stopped, and swallowed. "I broke the circle. The demon almost took Jace. We had to kill it, and it took Clary's memories with it."

_Because I'm an idiot. Because I panicked. Because no one was ever supposed to know that I—that I—_

No one spoke.

And Alec felt his stomach drop, because that had to mean that somehow, that had been the wrong answer.

"Alec," Izzy said quietly, at last. "That was months ago."

"No," Alec heard himself say.

His hands clenched themselves up tight—and then he felt a pressure he wasn't expecting. Something hard, round, in a circle looping his finger.

A ring.

A ring— _the_ ring. The family ring, except there was no reason he'd have put it on himself. A perfect replica, he realized dimly, and his gaze dragged itself helplessly up to Bane: to Bane's hand, to the matching band of silver there.

He stared at it, and his throat closed, his tongue thick in his mouth, his ears buzzing.

And that was when, as if from a very long way away, he heard Izzy say, "I—Alec. Magnus is here because he's your husband."

Bane left.

Alec didn't notice when he did. He couldn't look at Bane anyway. He sat there, numb, and listened dully as Izzy talked about how the trap must have cursed him, and then as she tried to explain; as if there were any way to make it make sense, as if this were something other than a living nightmare. By the _angel_ —Magnus _Bane_? What had Alec been thinking? Why hadn't anyone _stopped_ him? How had they even—how could they possibly have— _were_ there Clave marriage rites for men who were marrying men?

Maybe it hadn't mattered. Bane didn't like Shadowhunters; he probably wouldn't have wanted to get married like one, even if he could.

Then again, apparently he'd gotten married _to_ one, so what did Alec know?

Alec let Izzy's voice roll on, let the words wash over him unheeded, and scrubbed at his face with his hands. Everyone knew. They had to. He obviously hadn't bothered to keep it a secret, wearing the ring on his hand in public.

He couldn't understand it. He'd—he and Jace were parabatai. It was all right to care about Jace as much as he did, to _think_ about Jace as much as he did. He didn't—it was never going to be anything, and that was fine. He didn't _want_ it to be anything. He had Izzy, and he had Jace, and that was all that mattered. Obviously he'd always known he'd have to get married sooner or later; that was his duty. His family, his responsibility to them, the Lightwood name—those things were so much more important to him than pointless, obscene hypotheticals about what might _feel_ good.

Except apparently they hadn't been. Apparently at some point, Alec had decided to throw all of that away so he could get himself hitched to an immortal Downworlder who liked to call him "pretty boy".

Alec's skin prickled unhelpfully at the memory. Bane's voice, the easy confidence of it; the wash of shy heat Alec had felt in his face, the way he hadn't quite been able to bite away a smile, when Bane had made it clear he was talking about Alec and not Jace.

Hardly anyone looked at Alec twice, when Jace was in the room. Jace, Izzy—and then Clary, too, Clary who was new and strange and had turned out to be one of them, Jocelyn's long-lost daughter. Compared to any of them, all of them, Alec was just himself. That had never been enough.

Except, for a few minutes, it had been enough for Bane—

"Alec?"

Alec blinked, and looked up. Izzy was watching him with one eyebrow arched, and—oh. She'd stopped talking, and he hadn't noticed.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and rubbed a hand across his face again. "Sorry, Izzy," he said. "I—this is kind of a lot to take in."

When he risked a glance again, her face had softened, and she looked at him like that for a second and then turned and sat down next to him, and curled a reassuring hand around his shoulder. "Yeah, I bet," she murmured, wry, and offered him half a smile. "It's going to be okay, Alec. We'll figure out how to fix this. We'll get your memory back."

Alec looked away. She was just trying to comfort him; but he couldn't decide whether to hope she was right or not. Future Alec had ruined everything, and obviously couldn't be trusted to be in charge of Alec's life—but the last thing Alec wanted was to be stuck straightening out Future Alec's mess forever.

"Yeah," he said aloud, and then cleared his throat. "I know someone's going to need to—examine me," and he couldn't help but clench his jaw for a moment, knowing that _someone_ was probably going to end up being Bane. "But—" He stopped, and shook his head. His chest was tight. He couldn't breathe. "I need a minute."

Izzy bit her lip. "Of course," she said. "I'll—we should send a team back to examine the scene more carefully, to see if there are any traces left of the curse that did this. I'll take care of it." She paused. "Wouldn't want the head of the Institute out of commission for too long, after all," she added, with a bright sly look, and then walked away.

"The _head_ of the—" Alec repeated, blinking, and heard her laugh in the corridor.

Well. At least Future Alec hadn't messed _everything_ up.

Alec shook himself, and swallowed, and waited until the sound of Izzy's steps had faded with distance. And then he stood.

There wasn't anything wrong with him, not really. He wasn't injured, he wasn't in pain. A few months—that was hardly anything, compared to what Clary had had taken from her. There was no reason for him to stay in here sitting around.

He was almost to his rooms when he felt a brief cold spasm of apprehension. A few months was hardly anything; but at the same time, he was suddenly all too aware that all kinds of things could have happened, even besides the ones he already knew about. Maybe he didn't live at the Institute anymore. Maybe he'd had to make some kind of compromise, to marry Bane—kept his runes, but only by giving up something else.

But there was no way to find out except to look.

He was halfway down the next corridor before another terrifying thought occurred to him. If his rooms _were_ still here, still here and still his, then Bane might well be waiting for him: might have left earlier precisely in order to be sure he'd reach them first, so there wouldn't be anywhere Alec could seek refuge that would get him away from Bane.

But when Alec came to a stop outside his own door, and braced himself, and opened it—there was no one inside.

He let out a breath in relief. And then he looked again, more closely, and his heart tripped in his chest.

His rooms were the same. That much was reassuring. The layout, the furniture, the color of the walls. And he'd never been the kind of person who accumulated a lot of personal belongings.

But the ones he did have—the ones he remembered having—were all gone. There were no clothes in the closet; the bed was so perfectly made that it clearly hadn't been touched in weeks.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and clenched his fists. The one place he'd thought would feel familiar, unchanged, and Bane had managed to take that from him, too—

But that wasn't fair. Alec rubbed at his mouth, and then realized it was because he was thinking of Bane, of the way Bane had—touched him, and made himself stop.

He'd moved his things, because even if these were still his rooms in name, he'd—he must have wanted to live with his—

Alec drew in a sharp breath, and told himself to stop being a coward. He had to face the facts: however it had happened, Magnus Bane was his husband, and apparently Alec had been living with him.

Maybe Bane still lived in the penthouse Alec remembered. Even if he didn't, there would be records; Alec could find out. He could go and get his stuff, and put his rooms back the way they were supposed to be. And then, once he had his memories again, he'd already have a head start on putting a reasonable distance between himself and Magnus Bane.

That made sense. That was a solid tactical rationale.

It didn't have anything to do with Bane—with wondering whether Bane would be there, what he might say, what he might do. It wasn't that Alec was curious, desperately, intensely, because what was there worth being curious about? That he'd never dared so much as imagine that he could get married outright to a man, and that apparently his parents would allow it, or at least wouldn't be able to stop it; that he wouldn't be exiled or stripped of his runes or shunned, that the world wouldn't fall down around him—that it was terrifying and fascinating in equal measure to try to guess what his life might look like, shared with someone who apparently, unaccountably, inexplicably, _wanted_ him—

He was going to go and get his things back from Magnus Bane, that was all.

And if his mouth was still hot with the memory of Bane's against it, well, there was no reason why Bane was ever going to have to know it.

"Uh," Alec said. "Hi."

Bane blinked at him, unreadable, and opened the door a little wider. "Alexander," he said, and then his mouth slanted the barest degree, rueful. "How unexpected."

Alec swallowed, and then forced his eyes away and cleared his throat. "I'm just here for my things," he said.

"Ah," Bane murmured. "Of course. Well, in that case, I suppose you'd better come in."

He'd stepped back, and he was raising his eyebrows, looking Alec up and down. Pointedly, because—

Because obviously Alec was going to have to step inside, if he wanted to get his stuff back, except he hadn't moved. There was something about the idea of entering Bane's space—Bane's space, and apparently Alec's—that seemed obscurely dangerous.

Alec clenched his jaw, and ducked his head, and strode in past Bane without letting himself hesitate.

Or at least not any more than he already had.

Bane looked oddly pleased, considering he'd just let a visibly angry Shadowhunter into his home. But then he probably thought it was a concession, weakness. He probably thought he had Alec right where he wanted him, and then he'd—he'd do whatever it was the first time, however it was he'd managed to trick Alec into going along with this.

That made sense. Didn't it? Bane had done something to him, had wanted leverage with the Clave and decided he might as well have some fun while he did it. Had cursed him or something, seduced him, made him think he liked it. Maybe it had happened that day with the memory demon, the last day Alec remembered. Maybe whatever Alec had supposedly walked into had _broken_ a curse, not set one.

Alec wanted to believe it so badly that for a second he almost did.

Except—Izzy. Izzy would never have let that happen. Jace wouldn't have, either; and he'd be able to tell if something had been wrong with Alec more easily than anybody else, with the bond.

Izzy had been glad to see Bane, and she'd been angry with Alec for being unkind to him. Unless she was cursed, too, unless the whole Institute was—unless Bane had basically warped reality itself—and Magnus Bane was powerful, but not quite that powerful.

Alec couldn't blame him for this. No matter how much he wished he could.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Bane was saying, gesturing to the entire penthouse suite with a flourish. " _Our_ humble abode, that is, but I imagine that to you, right now, that sounds entirely unbelievable."

"You got that right," Alec muttered, sullen.

Bane's look of bland warmth flickered. Alec turned away from him and started walking; he didn't know where he was going, but there couldn't be _that_ many rooms in this place, right?

And then a hand caught his arm. "No, wait, you don't—that isn't—"

The double doors Alec had been about to push open, leading to what he thought was a side room, were already ajar. He hadn't been paying attention. He just wanted to figure out where his stuff was and get this over with.

But he ground to a halt, grudging, under the pressure of Bane's grip, and then blinked. Because he could already see from where he was standing, through the gap between the doors, that it was—it was a _mess_ in there. There was stuff all over the floor. And some of it made sense, the curves and angles of sigils chalked onto bare wood and stone, half a dozen open books, scattered fangs and dried flowers and something that looked to Alec like it might be a pile of eyeballs. But some of it, nearer to the door, just looked like debris. Like Bane had blasted half the room apart on his way in, and then left the shards where they lay.

"That isn't important," Bane was saying, with an easy smile, moving to put himself between Alec and the doors. "Nothing you need is in there."

"I—"

"Just working on some things," Bane added, too quickly, and then paused. "Well. Working on this, actually."

He made a graceful gesture that encompassed basically all of Alec.

And Alec couldn't help but stare at him. Bane couldn't have had more than an hour, an hour and a half, back here, given when he'd left the Institute—and he hadn't known what had happened to Alec until then. So he must have come straight to this place. He'd come straight to this place, and he'd—

Alec swallowed.

He'd smashed half a room into kindling. And then he'd stopped himself, and gotten it together, and started using the other half to figure out what had happened to Alec's memory.

It should have been weird. Bane had no reason to get that upset, to go to that kind of effort, over a Shadowhunter—except to him Alec wasn't just any Shadowhunter.

"I—spend a lot of time here," Alec heard himself say.

And that too-ready smile Bane had pinned to his face slid away, slowly, and left Bane standing there looking at him with soft, serious eyes.

It should have been ridiculous, incongruous: Bane with that grave, sincere expression on his dramatically painted face.

But Alec's heart felt squeezed tight in his chest, and he couldn't imagine laughing.

"Yes," Bane said, almost gentle. "You do. Your duties call you away regularly, of course. Sometimes at _very_ inconvenient moments," and the steady weight of his gaze eased for a moment, a brief sparkle in his eye, and oh, god.

Alec felt his face flush hot, and hoped dimly that Bane couldn't tell. Obviously he didn't know, didn't have the personal experience to do anything but imagine what an _inconvenient moment_ with Bane might involve.

Well, except that he did. He just couldn't remember it right now. But he and Bane must have—surely they must have—Bane would have wanted to, wouldn't he? Someone like him would have no reason to stay with someone like Alec long enough to get married, unless Alec had been letting him—

"But you stay the night more often than not," Bane was saying smoothly, as if it really was as simple as that for him.

It probably was, Alec thought grimly. He probably didn't even know that Alec had never—why would he? Looking at him now, composed and poised and peacock-beautiful, it was impossible to imagine telling him something like that. It was impossible to imagine that he'd have stood there and listened to it, and then wanted Alec anyway.

"And we," Alec said, and then had to stop and brace himself before he could get the rest of it out. "We—love each other."

Bane looked at him for a long moment, and his eyes were—Alec knew, suddenly, with an impact that felt like he'd been struck, what the answer was, even before Bane said, very softly, "Yes, Alexander. We do."

Nothing Alec had been told since he'd woken up had made sense to him. It didn't make sense that Bane had been coming to help him, and it didn't make sense that they were married to each other; it didn't make sense that they as good as lived together, that apparently Alec had practically left the Institute behind to throw himself at Magnus Bane.

But this—this had to be the most impossible of all.

There were people who loved Alec. Alec knew that. But there had never been anyone who loved him _more_ than anybody else. Who'd picked him: not as parabatai, not to make them stronger; not because he was family. Not even because he was a Shadowhunter—in spite of it, really. Just because they wanted him that much.

His whole body had gone hot, this time; his eyes stung. He didn't know where to look. For all that Bane was the one who'd admitted it, it was Alec who felt abruptly raw, strangely exposed.

"I," he said, useless, and squeezed his eyes shut, and cleared his throat. "I'm just here to get my stuff."

"Of course," Bane said quietly. "Through there."

Alec had to look at him again to see which direction he was indicating. Bane seemed calm again, mostly. But there was a hint of tension around his mouth, and something in vulnerable in his eyes, that said this was harder for him than he was letting on.

Alec didn't want to know that.

"No rush," Bane added. "You're welcome to take your time. Stay as long as you like."

"I shouldn't," Alec said. "I—" He shouldn't be here at all. He'd left the Institute without telling anyone, and Izzy was going to come back any minute and find an empty bed, if she hadn't already—

"I suspect your sister will have some ideas as to where you may have gone," Bane murmured. "If something's wrong, she'll call."

Alec blew out a breath. "Right. Thanks, Bane," he made himself say.

The shadow of a furrow crossed Bane's brow. "Magnus," he said. "Please."

Alec swallowed. "Magnus," he repeated quickly, and ducked his head, before he could accidentally start staring again.

The bedroom Bane—Magnus—escorted Alec toward wasn't as strange as Alec had expected.

Truthfully, he hadn't known what to expect at all; he'd never been in a warlock's master bedroom before. But it wasn't unlike some of the finer rooms at the Institute: dark wood, gleaming fixtures, some kind of huge shining chandelier, and of course silk everywhere. That, Alec decided he had expected. It was easy—too easy, maybe—to imagine Magnus Bane on silk sheets.

It was just that there was a certain warmth to it all, irrepressible, unignorable. Some of the wood furnishings were dark, yes, but not black; they had a glow that seemed to come from somewhere within them. The walls were sand-gold, except where there was unfinished brick, and the curtains were vividly red, the bed itself done up in a burnished shade of coral—though Alec could guess already that the color probably changed on Magnus's whim.

It felt like a room where people touched each other. There was nowhere in the Institute that had ever felt like that to Alec.

Though his impressions might also have been shaped by the fact that he could spot himself in this room immediately, for all that he couldn't remember ever having been here before.

A pair of black boots at the foot of the bed, one standing straight and the other tipped over sideways, left lying there—too heavy for Magnus, not his style. A black shirt, too, draped halfway over a bedside table and forgotten there. Beside it, nearly hidden under the edge, two things: a smooth dark stone Alec had carried around for so long it had started to soak up his energy, unmistakable, instantly recognizable; and a silver pendant Izzy had given him, which he hardly ever wore but had always liked to keep where he could see it.

His breath caught in his throat. There had to be more, and it probably wasn't all in this room anyway. But those four things, the gamut they ran from casual signs of habitation to tiny personal objects no one would have thought to bring here except Alec himself—it was enough.

"Alexander," Magnus said carefully, at his shoulder.

"I never thought this was something I could have," Alec blurted.

He felt foolish the moment he said it. Magnus Bane wasn't bound by rules, or at least not the same ones that governed Alec. He probably got everything he wanted, and never thought twice about it, and nothing could possibly remain out of his reach for long.

But when he risked a glance, Magnus was looking at him with those wide thoughtful eyes, and not even the barest hint of impatience or disinterest on his face.

"This—being with someone like this," Alec clarified, after a breathless beat of silence. "With a—with a man."

He had to force the words out through a wave of gut-clenching apprehension, half his mind screaming at him to shut up, that no one was supposed to know—that there was nothing _to_ know, and there never would be, and that was fine.

But he did it, and once they'd dropped from his mouth he felt strange and light, almost dizzy with it.

He'd said it. He'd said it out loud. And if anyone would let him say it without telling him he didn't know what he was talking about, or that he needed to stop and get his head on straight and remember his duty to the Clave, he thought wryly, it was definitely his warlock husband.

"Well," Magnus said after a moment. "You've got it now."

Alec bit his lip and shook his head. That wasn't quite what he'd meant. And he wanted with sudden fierceness to explain it, to have Magnus understand this about him, except he wasn't sure he even understood it himself.

He remembered thinking that his future self clearly couldn't be trusted to make decisions about their shared life, considering where he'd landed them both. But now, faced with the evidence that the person he'd become had managed to achieve things Alec had hardly dared to even hope for—he felt _envious_ of that Alec, powerfully, terribly. Of the Alec who belonged here, who slept in this room beside Magnus, who loved him and was loved by him, who'd married him. Who hadn't settled for learning to bear his own pointless desires in silence; who'd wanted things he wasn't supposed to be able to get, and then had gotten them anyway.

The gulf between Alec as he stood here and that other lucky Alec yawned impossibly wide. And Magnus had to see the difference just as clearly as Alec did. It wasn't Future Alec who had ruined Alec's life; it was Alec who was about to ruin Future Alec's, because only one of them had managed to make Magnus fall in love with him, and it wasn't Alec.

"I'd like to look around for a few minutes, if that's okay," Alec heard himself say.

"Of course," Magnus said instantly, and then hesitated. "I meant it, when I said you may stay as long as you like. But not on my account, Alexander." His face was drawn, grave and serious again. "If you would prefer to be somewhere more familiar to you—"

"That just makes it worse," Alec admitted, and reached up to rub a hand across his face. "The Institute might be familiar, but all I can see are the things that are different from—from what still seems to me like it was yesterday. At least here _everything_ is new."

"I hadn't thought about it that way," Magnus said slowly. "But I understand." He smiled, just a little; and this time it wasn't the too-easy smile he'd greeted Alec with at the door. It was warm, and soft, and real. "In that case, by all means. I'll be in the other room, but please don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything."

Words that could easily have come out sounding rote, the polite nothings of a consummate host. But Magnus managed to imbue them with a quiet sincerity that made Alec sure they were nothing more or less than the simple truth.

And then Magnus inclined his head and withdrew in a handful of quick strides. Alec had to clench his fists tight at his sides to keep from grasping for him, catching his arm and making him stay—as if there were any reason to; as if Alec had something more to say to him, except Alec couldn't think what, and it was too late anyway, Magnus already entirely out of his reach.

He did look around some more, for a little while.

He found a closet that seemed to be his, or at least more his than Magnus's. Still mostly black, which was no surprise. But he turned up a handful of shirts and slacks in deep jewel tones, clearly owed to Magnus's influence—and the surprisingly mundane makeup in the attached bathroom was neatly divided, one set clearly in the process of expanding from the barest rudiments. It had to be Alec's. He wondered, dimly, when it was that Magnus might have bothered to learn how to put on makeup without magic. He must have learned to enjoy it; he must have decided to teach Alec how to do it, too.

Alec stared down at it for what felt like a long time. And then he looked up and was met with his own face in the mirror.

Months, that was what Izzy had said. Months, but probably less than a year. He looked almost the same, he thought. His hair had changed; there were scars, a rune or two, that he didn't recognize. But that was all.

He was still practically himself, except in all the ways he wasn't.

He looked into his own eyes, hard, searching, like if he just peered deep enough he'd be able to see the answer.

What had happened? What was it that had finally done the trick—finally made him selfish enough, stubborn enough, _brave_ enough, to decide that what he wanted mattered?

He'd married Magnus Bane. No one had stepped in to tell him he couldn't, no one had made him take it back. He'd pulled it off, except he couldn't remember how. And when he'd first woken up, all he'd wanted was to know what the hell he'd been thinking; but now he just wanted to know who that Alec was, how to become him again.

Maybe it wasn't possible. Maybe his memories were lost forever. Maybe Magnus was stuck with him now, this sad clueless facsimile of the husband he'd loved.

Maybe there was more than one reason Alec should collect his things and get out of here. Maybe he'd be doing them both a favor.

He shut his eyes, and ignored the sting in them until it went away.

He wandered back out to the bedroom eventually. He found himself sinking to the edge of the bed, spreading a hand out flat across those beautiful silk sheets.

He didn't mean to lie down, exactly. It was only supposed to be for a minute: just to see what it was like. Just to imagine how it felt to be the version of himself that belonged here, in this bed, with Magnus.

He _definitely_ didn't mean to fall asleep.

He woke feeling dazed and gritty-eyed, disoriented. There was no more sunshine spilling in past those red, red curtains. It had to be getting late—and of course Magnus hadn't come in, hadn't disturbed him.

He checked and discovered that it wasn't late anymore, but rather obscenely early, and felt guiltier still. After the way Alec had shoved him off earlier, of course Magnus wouldn't have risked coming in here and _lying down next to him_. Alec had forced him out of his own bed, even if it had been an accident.

Not that Magnus couldn't conjure up ten more rooms just like this one, if he really needed to. But nevertheless, it was a poor way to repay Magnus's hospitality.

Alec pressed his mouth into a determined line, and rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes, and stood.

Magnus had a lot of furniture. He'd probably fallen asleep on one of his dozen enormous couches or something. But the least Alec could do was go find him out there, offer to switch places and let him have his own bed for the rest of the night.

Except, as it turned out, Magnus wasn't actually asleep at all.

Alec didn't have to look for him for long: there was a soft light coming out from between a pair of half-open double doors Alec couldn't help but recognize, and Magnus was crouched on the floor, flipping the pages of a huge old book and muttering to himself.

"Magnus," Alec said, and grimaced; his voice had come out gravelly, sleep-hoarse. "Are you seriously still working?"

Magnus had looked up at the sound of his name, and he gazed at Alec silently, eyes huge and dark in his face, for long enough that Alec felt his face heat.

Then again, it had been a pretty stupid question. Obviously Magnus wanted his actual husband back, not some guy who'd have been too terrified to marry him and wouldn't even kiss him.

And then Magnus shook himself a little, and said, "Well, Alexander, it _is_ a rather fascinating problem."

"Really," Alec said.

"Oh, yes. Consider: what is the practical utility of a curse that removes mere months of memory? Not even targeted to a specific subject—if it had been intended simply to erase any memory of the investigation that brought you onto the trail of the trap's creator, it overshot by a frankly embarrassing margin."

Alec blinked. He hadn't really thought about it. But that was kind of a weird curse, wasn't it? Both oddly specific, and yet not specific enough to have done anything genuinely meaningful.

"Maybe there was a mistake in it somewhere," he offered, after a moment.

"Possible," Magnus allowed graciously. "But I believe there may be slightly more to it than that. The fact that your memories remain intact up to and including the point at which a memory demon had contact with your mind—reached into it, and touched all that was within it, in order to determine what constituted the payment it required—"

He stopped short, an unreadable flicker crossing his face.

Because, Alec thought, no matter how long ago that had been for him, there was no way he'd forgotten how badly Alec had screwed that up, how belligerently he'd denied that it meant anything. And it had to be strange for him, to know for a fact that once upon a time, a demon demanding a memory of love from the man Magnus had married had settled on one of Jace's face.

"It must have left traces," Magnus was saying, looking away. "A kind of protection, however unintentional, that kept all the memories you'd formed up to that point—all the ones that existed at the time the demon encountered you—intact. The trap must have been intended to wipe you entirely clean. And the fact that it couldn't, in the face of the remains of demonic magic, is actually quite helpful when it comes to narrowing down possible mechanisms of action."

"If you say so," Alec allowed. Magical theory had never really been his strong suit.

"Depending on how far I can pare down the list," Magnus added thoughtfully, "I may be able to develop a counter-curse that would work on any one of them. That way we wouldn't need to worry about identifying the exact spell. Though of course that method has pitfalls of its own." He glanced up, mouth half open, and then stopped himself again, and carefully, deliberately, changed tacks: he smiled.

It was the smooth, easy smile.

Alec wished it were the real one instead.

"Magnus," he said, low, and then bit his lip. Magnus was clearly working hard on this, devoting close to a full day's worth of time and energy already, when he could as easily have left it to the Institute, the Clave, to figure out for themselves—they'd have ended up calling on him to consult anyway, probably, but only after they'd done the basic legwork for him.

Surely even the Alec that Alec currently wasn't couldn't be—couldn't be _enough_ for Magnus to go to these kinds of lengths so unhesitatingly.

"Magnus, was I—you—you really want me back that badly?"

He flushed hot as soon as he'd said it, cursed himself and bit down on the inside of his cheek. He ought to turn around right now and leave, get out of Magnus's penthouse entirely and go back to the medical wing in the Institute, and stay there—

"You haven't gone anywhere, Alexander," Magnus said softly.

Alec risked a glance at him. He was watching Alec steadily, and that slick smile was gone again, his face sober and serious, no hint of amusement in it.

"Oh, come on," Alec said, sharper than he'd meant to, too loud. "You can't be serious. I'm not—I'm not anything like him."

Magnus tilted his head, brows drawing down curiously. "You really think you're that different from the man I fell in love with."

It was nothing but a statement, even, neutral, but Alec flinched from it anyway—from hearing him say it again, so baldly, _fell in love with_ ; from the obvious, painful truth of it.

"I must be," he made himself say. "I don't understand how I couldn't be. I'm—I haven't—" He stopped, and made himself breathe, and didn't meet Magnus's eyes. "I don't know what I'm doing. I've never been with anybody; I don't know how. You think I'm pretty, you like how I look with a bow in my hands, fine. But that isn't—that can't be enough that you'd—"

"Alexander," Magnus said, and he sounded breathless, almost wounded. Alec's head came up before he could stop it, and Magnus had risen to his feet, was crossing the room, was catching Alec's hands in his own.

"You _married_ him," Alec choked out.

"I married _you_ ," Magnus said.

Alec squeezed his eyes shut, jaw tight; but he couldn't quite convince himself to pull away from Magnus's hands around his.

"All that you will become, Alexander," Magnus murmured, "you already are. The seeds of yourself are there. _That's_ what drew my eye to you, even when I barely knew you at all. Your strength, your surety, your bravery. Even when you were afraid, ashamed, you didn't let that stop you for long." He paused. "If anything, I've been the one who's been trying to learn to follow your example. I almost let my own broken heart, my own fear and uncertainty, keep me from reaching for you. If your sister hadn't invited me to your wedding—"

Alec sucked in a startled breath, blinking. "My wedding?" he said. "How did I have a wedding my husband wasn't invited to?"

Magnus blinked back at him, and then smiled, slow, wry, bright—the real one. "It was supposed to be to someone else," he said, and laughed. "It's kind of a long story."

Alec swallowed. He—he hadn't quite realized exactly how close Magnus had come to him, while his eyes were shut; but now he was all too aware of it, and Magnus was swaying closer still, one hand coming up to settle against the side of Alec's throat, thumb at the corner of his mouth.

"If you believe nothing else, believe this," Magnus said, just barely above a whisper. "I love you—all of you, any of you. No matter what you do or don't remember, no matter who you think you are or aren't."

Alec's heart was pounding. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Magnus was going to kiss him again, and this time—this time, Alec had no intention of shoving him away.

The thought, the intent, was clear; practically visible in Magnus's gaze, the way it flicked to Alec's mouth again and again, the way his thumb moved against Alec's lips.

And then Magnus drew a quick breath, and cleared his throat, and let his hand fall. "I," he said, and cleared his throat again. "I apologize, Alexander—"

Alec found a soft frustrated noise on his tongue and couldn't make himself swallow it. He let it out instead, let it out and caught Magnus by the wrist, the shoulder; pressed his mouth to Magnus's, almost furiously, because _seriously_. He'd lost his memories, he was repressed, he didn't know what he was doing—but he wasn't made of _stone_.

Magnus gasped against Alec's mouth, and for a moment was tense with surprise; and then, as quickly as he'd tried to move away in the first place, he melted. Suddenly they were pressed together practically from hip to shoulder, and Alec moved his hand from Magnus's shoulder to the angle of his jaw, stroking a daring thumb along the line of his cheekbone. Magnus's tongue against the wet curve of Alec's lower lip was the best kind of shock, and Alec parted his mouth in sheer helpless greed and was rewarded with a soft hungry sound, a hard kiss that plunged deeper still, before Magnus gentled the pressure slowly and then broke away.

Alec tried to catch his breath, chest heaving, and blinked eyes that felt sweetly heavy—and then stared. "Your eyes."

For a moment, Magnus was looking back at him in perfect incomprehension, and Alec had the best view he could ever have asked for: Magnus's eyes were hot, gleaming bright, and unmistakably slit-pupiled.

And then Magnus twisted his face away, covered his eyes with one hand for an instant, and when he looked up again they were just as they had been—glamoured over, Alec realized, with a strange aching twinge.

"You don't have to do that," he said softly. "I told you, I like them."

He touched Magnus's cheek, his temple. Magnus's mouth was reddening, and it shone a little in the dim light of the room. Alec wanted to kiss him again—wanted to take him back to that enormous bed and keep kissing him until the sun came up—

"Alexander," Magnus said, abruptly sharp. "What did you say?"

"I told you," Alec began, impatient, and then was brought up short. "I. I told you," he repeated more slowly, "I like them."

Because he had. Hadn't he? He'd said that to Magnus, he knew he had. He wasn't quite sure when, couldn't place the memory in context; it seemed disconnected, apart, alone.

But it was there.

Magnus was staring at him like he was the most wonderful thing Magnus had ever seen, and in a ripple the glamour broke again, Magnus beaming up at Alec with a brilliant golden pair of cat's eyes. "The last time I tried kissing you to fix a little magic gone wrong," he said, "it didn't work at all. But I suppose I shouldn't have given up on that method so soon. It's certainly much more fun than kneeling on a cold stone floor over a bunch of old books."

"You think—?"

"We might as well give it a try, mightn't we?" Magnus murmured, lowering his eyes, looking up at Alec through his lashes, coy and sweet and impossibly lovely.

"No argument here," Alec said hoarsely.

He didn't know what to think, whether it had been the kiss or—or the curse had never been able to cast itself right in the first place, was crumbling now because midnight had been and gone, or who knew what else.

But it felt right, he thought. It felt right, to lead Magnus back to their bedroom, their bedroom in their home, with their hands clasped tight; to let Magnus, who loved him, start putting him back together, one kiss at a time.


End file.
